China's entertainment market "cosmic big explosion" is coming soon?

China's entertainment market "cosmic big explosion" is coming soon?

- Tencent interactive entertainment model in the era of pan-entertainment

Wu Chen

“A singularity that belongs to the Chinese cultural and creative industry, a new start point for pan-entertainment, has arrived.” Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent Group and CEO of Tencent Pictures, recently announced the Tencent Interactive Entertainment Annual Conference. In the opening speech.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Tencent’s first full-scale "pan-entertainment" strategy. The market capitalization of Tencent's listed companies ranked among the top 10 in the world on April 5, 2017. The date of the conference (20th) was a record high of 2.24 trillion Hong Kong dollars. Ren Yujun, Group Chief Operating Officer of the Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG), recently took over the Internet Media Group (OMG) with Tencent and Tencent Video as its main assets, and also integrated and coordinated the content creation, distribution and marketing segments. Created potential benefits. The phenomenon-level mobile game "King of Honor" produced by the L1 studio of Tencent Tianmei Studio Group has become an original product of 50 million daily active users. The TV drama of the same name, which was adapted from the demolition net “Choose Tianji” and starred in by the Lu Xun Lu Yao, is on the air in Hunan Satellite TV. The movie with the same name will be produced by the famous director and producer Huang Jianxin. Following the "Warcraft" movie, Tencent Pictures once again cooperated with the legendary film industry and jointly invested in the "King Kong: Yeouido"; as of the announcement, the film has already seized a 1.15 billion yuan box office. Taking Tencent, one of China’s largest entertainment companies, as a sample to explore the road to full upgrade of China's entertainment industry is a useful reflection.

Tencent believes that, unlike the West, China's biggest advantage in doing pan-entertainment is that everything is based on the Internet. Over the past 30 years, it has been made in China and will be created in China in the next 30 years. The platform advantage of “Internet+Culture” is only available in China today. Tencent Mutual Entertainment stated that it will focus on the construction of three ecosystems in the future, namely: Hierarchical Incubation of IP Platform Ecology, Global Collaborative Ecology, and High Quality Creative Ecology.

Tencent Mutual Entertainment launched a number of games, literature, and film and television works at the press conference that day. From this, you can see that it has always been the core of the IP network, open up the film and television roaming, and even offline experience content industry chain has always been the idea: the introduction of the classic Three party host / end tour / page tour adapted mobile game "Fighter King destiny" "Legend of dominance Mobile Games" "Magic Baby Mobile Games" "Miracle Awakening" "Jian Wang 3: fingertips" "Heaven 2: Oath" "Xuanyuan legendary hands Tour ""seeking immortal hand tour" and self-developed game brand "QQ speed" "QQ Hyun Dance" "love every day to eliminate" brand new iterative products; United Southern School uncle, Guo Guo, Bai Yixuan and others to develop "Little Fox "Hong Niang" adapted real-life dramas, united "Lao Xu" Xu Jinglei and Tencent Mutual Entertainment's group of Rubik's cubes to create a "One Under Man" movie and mobile game; authorized by Hasbro to launch the end-user version of "Transformers" and The film will be produced with Paramount's film "Transformers 5: The Last Cavalier" and the invitation will be given to the talented musician Lin Junjie as the virtual orchestra based on the "Everyday Erasing" game character. Instructors, to create cross-dimensional idols; to achieve strategic cooperation with Chen Guofu's time and effort, this year launches the first work “Genere of Goblin”; to host the “Yueyao Ming Yue Knife OL” national wind concert at the Temple of Heaven Ceremony; to obtain EA “Need for Speed” (Need for Speed) endorsed the license and entered into a strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz to allow players to drive the limited edition Mercedes-AMG GT R Beast of the Hell; unveiled the London International Book Fair and launched the “Starting International” website. Multilingual content provides Chinese readers with content on the Internet in the world...

As a plant community, there can be no trees but no shrubs, herbs, and fungi. It is simply a strong combination of large companies that cannot form a healthy and sustainable content ecosystem. UGC (user-created content) complements PGC (professional content creation) and learn from each other to keep the content ecosystem vibrant. Because any IP uses original content as a starting point, any (for-profit) original content should also be a fundamental goal for becoming an IP or even a media franchise. Originality and IP should never be separated or opposed, but should constitute a progressive relationship. Independent authors and small businesses are the most active content creators in the content ecosystem and the most widely covered source of IP. Tencent Mutual Entertainment clearly understands this profoundly: to improve the right-to-clean power mechanism, distribute remuneration in a timely manner (1 billion yuan in nettext royalties a year and 3.7 billion yuan in the distribution of cartoon authors), and introduce a writer welfare system to provide independent authors with basic information. Economic security and institutional guarantees, in addition to a series of measures to help small and medium-sized teams create IP content, including the establishment of operations support for the "small and beautiful" game and its development team, process facilitation services and financial assistance The "Aurora Project" and WeGame, as well as the establishment of a special long-term support for young filmmakers, supports Tencent's deputy license for the film and television project with its unique exploration spirit - the "Cinevision Film Workshop".

Acquired League of Legends developer Riot Games from 2011, and joined Epic Games, an Unreal platform developer, to participate in Activision Blizzard as a "passive investor" and invested 8.6 billion U.S. dollars in controlling Finland's famous developer, "Clash of Clans" (Clash). Of Clans), the company's supercell company, Tencent Entertainment has always been at the forefront of Chinese cultural companies in terms of globalization. Beyond the game, Tencent has signed a contract with Hollywood writer David S. Goyer and reached a cooperation with Free Association Inc. (a co-founder and partner of which is the famous actor Channing Tatum) to develop the movie "My name is Bai Xiaofei" and David F. Sandberg, the director of "Wrath of Fury" and Matt Lieberman, the famous screenwriter, will be invited to co-create the event. Another classic literary IP "Tibetan password", also plans to jointly shoot with the United States.

In 2016, Tencent achieved a total revenue of RMB1,519.838 billion (US$21,903 million) and an annual profit of RMB41,447 million (US$5.975 billion); of which half of the total revenue came from online value-added online games (46.62%). Also in FY 2016, Disney obtained US$ 55,632 million in total revenue and net profit of US$ 9.391 billion, including income from television and new media networks (that is, major realization channels of IP content: theme parks and resorts, movies, derivatives And entertainment revenue is about 32 billion US dollars. As the top cultural and creative enterprise of China and the United States, Tencent (especially the IP-related entertainment business) is inevitably compared with Disney.

Interestingly, in the opening speech of the conference, Cheng Wu explicitly stated the difference between Tencent and Disney: Disney's core assets are characters, and it is derived offline (including theme parks and resorts) by creating a fine movie strategy. Make money. And China's pan-entertainment is rooted in the emerging Internet soil, breaking the inherent creative order and threshold, vast and diverse creative space, rich and active IP source, and the ever-changing online derivative.

"In recent years, due to the large-scale use of CG and special effects technology, many IPs of magic and power themes have come to the big screen and become influential celebrities worldwide." Magic and abilities, in other words: fantasy and sci-fi, plus cartoons, have always been the bonanza of entertainment content IP, Warner's Middle-earth series (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit), and Harry Potter. The "Special" series and Disney's Marvel Story Series (MCU) - The "Avenger's Alliance" series are the pinnacle of fantasy and sci-fi movies. They can be kept on the timeline in units of ten years or more. Extremely high exposure and market appeal are all due to their lively and full star roles. If you have to pull in the game IP, then Square's "Tomb Raider" "Final Fantasy", Activision Blizzard's "World of Warcraft", Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed" "Prince of Persia", Capcom's " The "Resident Evil", including the "Reality Moment," now owned by Warner Entertainment, has been or is being filmized. The "Resident Evil" starred by Mira Jovovich and the "Tomb Raider" starring Angelina Jolie are characterized by their outstanding roles. They are most praised in word of mouth and have also achieved the same. Match box office performance.

A commercially successful game can dilute the story background with its unique play patterns and even cool special effects, even without the need for characters. However, if a game wants to enter the fields of literature, film, animation, and animation to develop the pan-entertainment industry, then the importance of the role will not increase. Because these contents all depend on the role; only the characters can be connected in a discrete storyline, and only the characters can carry the values ​​and emotional appeals that they hope to express in the story, so that the audience can feel a sense of suspension (suspension of disbelief). A popular word, immersion, is then loved (or loved by “hate”).

Some people call the generation of "net generation" young people Generation C: a generation that embraces Content, Curation, Connection, and Community. Without the function of mutual cognition and emotional resonance, there is no brand loyalty, and there is no good community and circle culture. In the past few years of “IP fever”, the discussion of who is more important about roles and stories has never stopped. Instead of character shaping as the core task of creative management and brand management, the efforts to make IP content for entertainment may go awry.

China certainly has a very successful role. It appeared hundreds of years ago. Today, it also feeds many people, such as Sun Wukong, Lin Chong, Zhuge Liang and Lin Yuyu. There are black cat sheriffs, Avanti, and gourds that appeared two or three decades ago. The brothers, of course, there were a few years ago, Hua Wei, Jie Sister, and the Secretary of the Dakang who had recently been very hotly discussed. There were even Xue Xue, Ercon, and Rong Ye who were active in our expression packages. From Disney's character franchise strategy and the shaping (or objective formation) of the above or past local roles, it is possible to find some common laws. These are just methods without affecting the aesthetic orientation and value orientation. Using these methods in combination with inherent aesthetic preferences and values ​​to shape roles, for pan-entertainment operations, it is often more effective and even far-reaching. China does not need to deliberately imitate Disney's character style, but the methodologies that shape the successful entertainment role are, to a large extent, all the same. China’s online literature, animation original platform, barrage website, emerging e-sports platform, and live broadcasting platform can precisely become a research and development platform for excavating and nurturing entertaining characters (including the online-red image that has the potential to enter the mainstream entertainment field). It is more rapid and cheaper than the traditional movie-sharing role.

To write story lines and even story space for games and entertainment products has long been widely adopted by mainstream game companies in Europe and America. In New York, Jeff Gomez's team helped include Microsoft Games, Electronic Arts, and even Disney Fantasy Engineering's storyline. The creative management techniques of the so-called “transmedia storytelling” used by them are based on a unified background and values, and they deduce narrative methods for multi-threaded stories on different media platforms, including “Halo” games, “ The "Spider-Man" and "Avatar" films, Coca-Cola TV ads, and even the current U.S. general election have been fully utilized.

Take "The Glory of the King" as an example. There are people on the Internet who spit, why Jing Jing is a woman, why Li Bai is an assassin, this does not respect history and mislead minors. This can in fact be explained by a fictional single-line story, thus forming a hugely extended story space (universe). A Li Bai, who can "give him up and hide his body and name" as he likes, exists only in the universe of "The Glory of the King" and has nothing to do with the poets in the real world. Get to this point of Li Bai, may become a collection of "your name" "smiling allure" Raytheon Thor, "Avatar" many wonderful in one magical existence. Tencent’s sleeves in entertainment have hidden “Dragon in the Sky”, “Searching for Immortals,” “The Adventures of the Brave,” “The End of the Moon, ol,” “Dungeon and the Warriors,” “Cross Fire,” and “every day Love Elimination and other trump cards, there is also a casual game with the first feeling that the brain hole is open - "Hundred Balls." Tencent may even want to ask its partners to take action and take off the helmet's "Call of Duty" special forces. What does it look like... In terms of potential, this is a super virtual celebrity role that can marvel at Marvel, the Star Wars universe. Ku: Because these characters, even if they are still unknown today, will appear at your fingertips from tomorrow, and the call will come. 24/7.

At the press conference, commercialization of commercialization and real-world amusement was also mentioned - a hand-held crowdfunding target of 1500%, licensing cooperation with U.S. Pacific and Wanda as well as film and television coverage of "Selecting the Sky". Entertainment IP derivatives are a global market with a scale of over US$107 billion; although in China, after several years of hard work, brand licensing is still at a very basic stage of development, and entertainment brands in mainland China and Hong Kong add up to less than 25 billion yuan. The total amount of retail sales of authorized products for the renminbi, of which the income belonging to young people to brands and local brands is even less. Tencent may not be able to replicate the great success of Disney Films, Disney Consumer Goods Department (DCP) and Disney theme parks and resorts now and in the future. It doesn’t have much positive significance. Let’s take a look at the situation of DreamWorks Animation today. Knowing - but it is not only feasible, but necessary, to attempt a single breakthrough in individual directions in these areas.

In fact, ignoring royalty revenue itself, purely as a medium for brand exposure, commercialization and LBE/LBS is an ideal marketing tool that can save money even more quickly. For example, LINE, which cannot be used in China, can still allow millions of teenage girls and even boys to have a giant bear glass sculpture or a doll posing for a picture, or spend a leisurely afternoon in a café full of plush toys. Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, a LINE FRIENDS three-story photo studio photo space, because too many visitors have to use the means to control the flow of admission, still can not stop the enthusiasm of fans, the area is lined up dozens of meters of long queues... ...LINE FRIENDS is very popular. The first is the success of the role setting. The second is of course the result of conscious promotion. Tencent’s casual games, such as the “Daily” series, plus a number of virtual music products being nurtured, combined with barrage, short video, and live broadcasting, naturally adapt to the seamless connection between online and offline, forming accurate coverage. Communities of interest. The lean brand management mechanism is the only way to optimize the user experience and increase the number of entrants, retention rate, and ARPU in situations where the total number of users is difficult to break through indefinitely.

The author has always advocated that the entertainment content with three views, strong characters, hypermedia, commercialization, and international norms is the most potential for IP and branding. There is reason to believe that with the huge user inventory, high quality internal and external IP content resources, massive user behavior data, perfect copyright management, creative management, brand management mechanism, and increasingly consolidated mobile payment portal status, the Internet represented by Tencent Enterprises beyond the national border, breaking the wall of dimension, creating and disseminating multimedia and even hypermedia content, will be more proficient to transform the advantages of the platform into product advantages and brand advantages, and will eventually usher in the pan-entertainment industry in the near future "The Big Bang".

(The author is 62 founder and managing director of Brands; the translated book "Principles of Brand Licensing", "Design Principles of Theme Park" was published by Tsinghua University Press.)